Derek and Braeden
The relationship between Evolved Beta Werewolf Derek Hale and Human Mercenary Braeden. Braeden and Derek first met in the second half of Season 3, when Deucalion hired her as a mercenary to rescue Derek (and, by extension, his uncle Peter Hale) from the Calavera Compound, where they were being held hostage and tortured for information about La Loba by Araya and Severo Calavera, prolific Hunters from the Calavera Family. In the process, Braeden was able to help the two Hales recover the claws of Derek's mother and Peter's sister, Talia Hale. The two did not see each other again until the beginning of Season 4, when Braeden was hired by Araya Calavera for two purposes-- to help the McCall Pack locate Derek, who had been missing for several weeks, and to locate the recently-resurrected Werejaguar Kate Argent who had taken him captive. Much to Braeden's shock, she and Scott McCall found Derek de-aged to his teenage self through a ritual performed by Kate. When Derek was returned to his normal adult self, he used his inheritance to hire Braeden to track Kate down, as his Werewolf eyes had mysteriously turned from blue to their original gold and he wanted to know why. He made it clear from the start that he did not trust Braeden, especially when she correctly understood his motives for seeking out Kate, but Braeden seemed to be interested in him romantically from the start and went out of her way to earn his trust, including lending her skills and assistance to their cause without pay. In time, the two grew closer and they began to trust each other while also developing romantic tension, which peaked when Derek saved Braeden's life after she was presumably shot by Kate in the Beacon Hills Preserve. Shortly afterward, she discovered that Derek had begun losing his powers and decided to train him in human combat and the use of firearms. During this training, the two consummated their affection for one another and began a romantic and sexual relationship that continued throughout Season 4. Braeden was horrified when she realized that Derek did not expect to live through the final battle with Kate when the two were planning to go back to La Iglesia in Mexico to save Scott McCall and Kira Yukimura, and she vowed that she would not allow this to occur. However, Derek's death seemed to be imminent upon their arrival to the temple when he was immediately attacked by one of Kate's Berserkers, and Braeden was devastated when she thought he had finally passed on. Fortunately for them both, Derek had actually completed his evolution into a Werewolf with the power to fully shift into a black wolf, just like his mother Talia and sister Laura, leaving Braeden ecstatic to have him back. The two then decided to leave Beacon Hills after the battle was won, traveling the world as a pair as they tracked the Desert Wolf. Braeden and Derek are known as Draeden by fans Throughout Teen Wolf |-|Season 3B= In More Bad Than Good, Derek Hale and Peter Hale were captured by the Calavera Family of Hunters and being held in their Mexico-based compound's basement, where they were being tortured for information on La Loba. During a brief break in their interrogation, Braeden arrived and began shooting at the Hunters throughout the house with her shotgun as she made her way down into the cell. After defeating the last guard, she took a moment to leer at Derek's shirtless body as he was shackled to the chain-link fence behind him before beginning to free him from his restraints. When she was questioned about what she was doing, Braeden revealed that she was hired by Deucalion to save Derek, taking great pleasure to emphasize that saving Peter was not part of the deal and that she was happy to leave him for dead, though she did ultimately free him as well for Derek's benefit. When Derek and Peter voiced their confusion as to why she was working for Deucalion, who had slashed her throat with his claws and nearly killed her in Tattoo, she shrugged and retorted, "Girl's gotta eat." Braeden went on to insist that they needed to get out of the compound quickly, Derek argued that he wasn't leaving without which they had come looking, leading the three to search the compound for the relic Derek and Peter sought-- an urn made from wood from the Nemeton with the Hale Family triskelion carved into the lid and containing Derek's mother and Peter's older sister Talia Hale's claws. They found the urn in a rowan-wood box filled with Mountain Ash, so Braeden, as the group's sole human, was the only one who could open it to obtain the object. Afterward, the three went their separate ways, with Derek and Peter returning to their homes in Beacon Hills and Braeden resuming her work as a mercenary. |-|Season 4= In The Dark Moon, Araya Calavera hired Braeden to guide the McCall Pack to the Mexican ruins of an old temple of the ancient Aztec god Tezcatlipoca known as La Iglesia. Araya's plan was to have Braeden assist the pack in locating Derek Hale, who had been missing for several weeks, as she believed that by doing so, the group would also locate his captor Kate Argent, who Araya wanted to capture due to her recent resurrection and transformation into a Werejaguar. When Stiles Stilinski's Stiles' Jeep broke down on the way to La Iglesia, Braeden was forced to continue on with Scott McCall on her motorcycle while the others tried to fix the Jeep. After battling Kate's Berserkers and breaking through a stone wall in the temple, Braeden and Scott found Derek, who, to their surprise, had been de-aged to his sixteen-year-old self as part of Kate's plan. Braeden then presumably left the group to continue her search for Kate while Scott and the others brought the young Derek back to Beacon Hills to be examined by Alan Deaton, the pack's Emissary. In Muted, Braeden was summoned to Derek's loft, where Derek and Peter met with her to hire her to find Kate Argent. Derek watched as Braeden and Peter bantered over Braeden putting her boots on the table and argued back and forth over how much she would be paid; while Peter believed catching Kate and bringing her to them was a simple job worthy of basic pay, Braeden reminded them that she had already been hired by the Calavera Family to find Kate and going against them would be what cost them extra. Derek, desperate to figure out what was wrong with him after Kate de-aged him and somehow caused his normally-blue Werewolf eyes to turn gold, agreed to pay Braeden whatever she wanted as long as they got results, much to Peter's frustration. After Braeden agreed to the deal and left, Peter wasted no time before asking, "Are you insane?", believing the amount of money they promised her was unwise due to the fact that someone (whom they incorrectly believed to be Kate Argent) had also stolen 117 million dollars from Peter's safe in the Beacon Hills Hale Vault. Peter's accusation led Derek to grab his wrist in anger and roar in his face, his fangs extended and his now-golden Werewolf eyes glowing, which clearly unsettled Peter. Derek went on to say that he was willing to pay Braeden whatever was necessary if it meant finding out what Kate did to him. Later, Braeden returned to the loft with an update after she used her cover story as a U.S. Marshall to get information on a recent murder of an entire family the day before in hopes it was related to their situation with Kate. While Braeden changed out of her business clothes and back into her earlier tank top and black leather pants, Derek read the case file he brought her, remarking that there was nothing in there about Kate, only something about a killer using an axe. Braeden corrected him by stating that it was actually a military tomahawk, which, as Derek pointed out, was not in the report she had given him. This led Derek to assume that Braeden knew more than she was letting on, a suspicion Braeden confirmed before slyly adding that she wasn't ready to tell him yet because she didn't know much at this time. Braeden went on to say that they had a problem-- the people with whom Braeden needed to meet to get more information on their case "don't talk to people like you," implying that they had an issue with Werewolves. Derek, somewhat flirtatiously, wondered aloud if this meant she wanted him to wait for her, and Braeden retorted that she wanted him to trust her. Derek, slightly offended, reminded her that he didn't know anything about her, to which Braeden responded, "Yeah, well... I know you. And I know what you really want. You want what she took from you. Briseann an dúchas trí shúile an chait. It means 'the true nature of someone is reflected in their eyes.' In your case, the color of your eyes." Derek, intrigued, informed her that he would give her a week to get the information he sought before tossing her gun to her as she walked out the door. In Orphaned, after fellow shapeshifter Brett Talbot was poisoned by a rare form of yellow wolfsbane through a stab wound inflicted by the Deadpool assassin Garrett, Derek enlisted the help of his cousin Malia Tate in hopes that her superhuman senses could lead them to the rest of Brett's pack in order to warn them against possible attack. (Unbeknownst to Malia, Derek needed her assistance not only due to her expert knowledge of the Beacon Hills Preserve's layout, but because he was slowly losing his Werewolf Sense of smell). Malia ultimately led the pair to Lookout Point in the nature preserve, where they found the majority of Brett's pack dead from a modified canine distemper virus. Derek was shocked upon seeing one of the victims moving, and soon realized that it was actually Braeden, who had presumably been looking for the pack's Alpha, Satomi Ito, and who was shot in the process. In Weaponized, Derek was seen holding Braeden in a bridal-carry as he rushed her into the Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital for treatment after having found her bleeding out from a gunshot wound in the previous episode. After the bullet had been removed, Derek was found sitting at Braeden's bedside, staring at her with obvious romantic interest, when Melissa McCall came in to talk to her. He immediately began to protest when Melissa administered naloxone, a medication used to reverse the effects of opiate painkillers such as the morphine she was given for pain management, to wake her up in hopes of getting information on what she saw before she was shot. Though Derek insisted that Satomi's Pack had been poisoned, the newly-conscious Braeden weakly corrected him by stating that they had actually been exposed to a virus created to kill Werewolves, which is exactly what it did. Later, when Braeden awoke a second time to find Derek still sitting at her bedside, checking on her, she wasted no time asking him what he was still doing there. Derek, slightly embarrassed to have been called out like that, playfully joked that he was simply "protecting his investment," as he had a lot of money riding on her ability to find Kate Argent. Just then, they were once again interrupted by Melissa, who informed Derek that she had found someone he was looking for-- Satomi Ito-- and that the Alpha also wanted to talk to Derek. In Time of Death, In Perishable, In Monstrous, In Smoke and Mirrors, Trivia *Braeden is Derek's fourth love interest introduced in the show and his first relationship that was both honest and healthy. **Derek's relationship with Paige Krasikeva was healthy but involved secrets on Derek's part, namely that he was a Werewolf and that he secretly planned to turn her into a Werewolf without her consent in hopes of them staying together forever. **Derek's relationship with Kate Argent was unhealthy due to the severe age difference (with Derek being a minor at age sixteen while Kate was an adult at age twenty or so) and dishonest due to their relationship being built on lies, specifically the fact that she hated Werewolves and that she had been assigned to get close to Derek with the intent of using their relationship to kill his entire family in the Hale House Fire. **Derek's relationship with Jennifer Blake unhealthy due to Jennifer's obsessive feelings for Derek (stemming from the fact that it was his sacrifice of Paige that allowed her to survive her wounds from Kali) and was dishonest due to the fact that Jennifer was secretly the Darach who was committing human sacrifices in order to gain the power necessary to kill the members of the Alpha Pack. *Both initially seemed to be a bit closed off when it comes to their feelings, but they both developed a deeply trusting and caring bond between each other. *According to Meagan Tandy and Tyler Hoechlin, the actors who play Braeden and Derek, respectively, the two characters are still happily in a relationship. Gallery 4x06bloody Braeden.png|Orphaned 4x07 Derek takes Braeden to hospital.png|Weaponized Braden beats Derek in arm wrestling match.gif|Weaponized Derek and scott monstrous.png|Monstrous 4x12 Braeden undressed.png|Smoke and Mirrors Draeden.gif|Smoke and Mirrors La iglesia exterior braeden derek.jpg|Smoke and Mirrors Category:Relationships Category:Romantic Relationships Category:Friendships Category:Needs Help